Comedy sequels are arguably the most difficult type of follow-up to pull off, and the risk level increases the longer the gap since the first movie. Action and thriller franchises are almost expected to rehash the same plot and character beats over and over again, whereas a series designed entirely to generate laughs from the audience can’t exactly deliver the same joke a handful of times and expect it to remain fresh.
For every 22 Jump Street, Bill & Ted Face the Music or Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, there’s a Dumb and Dumber To, Zoolander 2 or Son of the Mask at the other end of the scale, and as the years pass, it becomes more and more difficult to justify the existence of a long-delayed sequel to an established comedy hit.
That hasn’t stopped Vince Vaughn from confirming that he’s held talks with co-star Owen Wilson and director David Dobkin about returning to the world of Wedding Crashers, though. The raunchy comedy was a massive hit fifteen years ago after raking in almost $290 million at the box office, and the movie’s success played a huge part in re-establishing the R-rated comedy as a viable enterprise for Hollywood’s major studios, leading to the domination of Judd Apatow’s troupe over the next few years.
In a recent interview to promote his upcoming Blumhouse vehicle Freaky, Vaughn admitted that discussions are still in the early stages, but he’s hoping to make Wedding Crashers 2 a reality sooner rather than later.
“Owen and I and the director of Crashers have been talking for the first time seriously about a sequel to that movie. So there has been an idea that is pretty good. So we are talking about that in the early stages. They were fun movies to make. It’s always fun to make people laugh and go to work with people that are funny.”
Vaughn has just started to reinvent himself as an acclaimed dramatic actor, so there must be a really good idea at the core of the proposed Wedding Crashers sequel to convince him that returning to the well is a good bet when the next stage of his career looks like it might be about to take off. And with any luck, we’ll find out more about the project in the not too distant future.